Education and Learning
There have been immense advances in technology in most aspects of people’s lives, especially in the field of education. Nowadays, an increasing number of students rely on computers to research for information and to produce a perfect paper for school purposes. Others have decided to leave the original way of learning to get knowledge through online schools. These changes in the learning process have brought a special concern regarding the possible decrease of importance of teachers in the classroom.
Some people believe the role of teachers started to fade because computers have been helping some students to progress in their studies quicker than when compared with an original classroom. For example, in the same classroom, students have different intellectual capacities, thus some would be tied to a slow advance in their studies because of others‟ incapacity of understanding. In this way, pupils could progress in their acquisition of knowledge at their own pace using computers instead of learning from teachers.
However, the presence of a teacher is essential for students because the human contact influences them in positive ways. Firstly, students realize that they are not dealing with a machine but with a human being who deserves attention and respect. They also learn the importance of studying in group and respect other students, which helps them to improve their social skills.
Moreover, teachers are required in the learning process because they acknowledge some student’s deficiencies and help them to solve their problems by repeating the same explanation, giving extra exercises or even suggesting a private tutor. Hence, students can have a bigger chance not to fail in a subject.
In conclusion, the role for teachers in the learning process is still very important and it will continue to be in the future because no machine can replace the human interaction and its consequences.
Nobody can argue that the acquisition of knowledge is more fun and easier with computers. The mere activity of touching and exploring this device constitutes an enjoyable task for a kid. This, accompanied with the relaxing attitude and software interactivity, usually conduce to a better grasping of new knowledge. At a higher educational level; the availability of digital books, simulator and other academic materials, provide the student with an ever accessible source of information, that otherwise would not be at hand.
But, besides the increasing complexity and behavior of intelligent software, which is usually embedded in the academic digital material, the need of human interaction in the learning process will always be present, at least in the foreseeable future. There is the necessity for a human being to be able to determine what the specifics needs of each individual are. The expertise of a teacher in how to explain and adapt complex concepts to different individuals can hardly be mimicked by a computer, no matter how sophisticated its software is.
As computers are becoming a common tool for teaching, teachers should be more aware of their role as guides in the acquisition of knowledge rather than transmitters of facts. They have to be open minded to the changes that are taking places, keep updated and serve as a problem solvers in the learning process, thus allowing students to discover the fact for themselves.
To summarize, in my personal view, teachers play and will play an important role in the classroom, especially at the primary level. No matter how complex computers become, there will be no replacement for the human interaction, but in the way haw this interaction takes place.
From my everyday experience and observation I can stand that the best way of learning about life is through personal experience. However, some people think that it is wiser to learn about life through listening to the advice of family and friends. It does not mean I totally disagree with this way of learning. Moreover, I think that it is wise for a person to take an intermediate position because each of these ways has its own advantages. Bellow I will give my reasons to support my point of view.
From the one side, learning through one’s personal experience brings many benefits. First of all, scientists say that personal experience has greater impact on a person. I have to agree with this. Take for example children. They will not believe their parents that something can hurt them until they try it and make sure in it. Furthermore, most likely they will remember this experience longer. Second of all, people learn how to analyze their mistakes, make conclusions and next time try to avoid them. So, I think it is a great experience that makes people stronger, more self-confident and persistent. They gain more knowledge and experience that will be very helpful and valuable in the
future.
From the other side, listening to the advice of family and friends brings many benefits too. Parents with great patience pass down their knowledge and experience to their children. They teach them all they know and they want their children do not make the same mistakes. In addition to those practical benefits, learning from someone’s advice is painless. For example, parents nowadays very often talk to their children about drugs. I think it is a great example when one should not try drugs in order to gain new experience. I think it is a case when children must trust their parents.
To sum up, I think it is wise to combine both of these ways to learn and try to analyze personal mistakes as well as not personal. I think together they can greatly simplify one’s life and make the way to success shorter.
What young people should study at school has long been the subject of intense debate and this is a question that certainly does not have one correct answer.
We need to provide young people the best possible chance of doing well at school. In traditional curriculum there is a wide variety of subjects with a mix of academic and non-academic subjects. In this way a young person is formed with a rounded education. Non-academic subjects would include sports, cooking, woodwork and metalwork. I believe this is the best form of education. A young person should learn things other than academic subjects. Sport is particularly important. Young people have to learn to love sport so that they can be fit and healthy later in life. If not we will be raising an obese and unfit generation.
I totally understand the point of view that education is so important that students must be pushed as hard as possible to achieve their best. It sounds a good idea to only expose the students to academic subjects as then they can spend all of their school hours on studying areas that will get them into university and good jobs later in life. I just feel a more rounded education would produce a better individual. We must remember too that a lot of people, maybe even most people, aren‛t academically minded and would benefit more from a more vocationally based education. Forcing academic studies onto them would lead to failure and the student leaving school too early.
Therefore I agree that although a wholly academic curriculum would suit and benefit some young people, I believe that for most students non-academic subjects are important inclusions still in today‛s syllabuses.
There is no doubt that some students in schools behave badly and their behaviour causes difficulty for others either because it has a negative effect on the group or because ordinary students find it difficult to study with them.
One solution is to take these students away and teach them on their own. However, if we simply have them removed after one or two warnings, we are limiting their educational opportunities because it seems to me that a school which caters for difficult students is a sort of “prison” whatever name you give it and the people who go there may never recover from the experience. This can then cause problems for the wider society.
Perhaps we need to look at why the disruptive students behave badly before we separate them. Disruptive students may be very intelligent and find the classes boring because the work is too easy. Perhaps these students need extra lessons rather than separate lessons. Or perhaps the teachers are uninspiring and this results in behavioural problems so we need better teachers. On the other hand, most students put up with this situation rather than cause trouble, and some people argue that we have to learn to suffer bad teachers and boring situations and that students who can’t learn this lesson need to be taught separately.
So before we condemn the students to a special school, we should look at factors such as the teaching, because once the children have been separated, it is very unlikely that they will be brought back.
“Experience is the best teacher” is an old cliché, but I agree with it. We can learn a lot of important things from books, but the most important lessons in life come from our own experiences. Throughout the different stages of life, from primary school to university to adulthood, experience teaches us many skills we need for life.
As children in primary school, we learn facts and information from books, but that is not all we learn in school. On the playground we learn how to make friends. In our class work, we learn how it feels to succeed and what we do when we fail. We start to learn about the things we like to do and the things we don’t. We don’t learn these things from books, but from our experiences with our friends and classmates.
In our university classes, we learn a lot of information and skills we will need for our future careers, but we also learn a lot that is not in our textbooks. In our daily lives both in class and out of class, we learn to make decisions for ourselves. We learn to take on responsibilities. We learn to get along with our classmates, our roommates, and our workmates. Our successes and failures help us develop skills we will need in our adult lives. They are skills that no book can teach us.
Throughout our adulthood, experience remains a constant teacher. We may continue to read or take classes for professional development. However, our experiences at work, at home, and with our friends teach us more. The triumphs and disasters of our lives teach us how to improve our careers and also how to improve our relationships and how to be the person each one of us wants to be.
Books teach us a lot, but there is a limit to what they teach. They can give us information or show us another person’s experiences. These are valuable things, but the lessons we learn from our own experiences, from childhood through adulthood, are the most important ones we learn.
Some people think that fiction books have no use at all. They claim that people should read about real events that took place, real people, and established facts. I have to totally disagree with this statement. From my everyday experience and observation I can stand that fiction, miracles and fairy tales are required in our life. For several reasons, which I will mention below, I believe that fiction books play an essential role in our life.
First of all, it is kind of difficult to imagine a six year old child reading about politics or history with the real facts that are not always pleasant. I think that children need miracles and Santa Claus because the real world is too complicated for them. They are too innocent and inexperienced to know the real facts and understand what a real life is about. In addition, I am sure that making a child read only non-fiction books can result in shock.
Second of all, following this statement about refusing from reading books about fiction events we also should refuse from festivals, parades, and celebration such holidays as Halloween because most of the characters there are fictional. Moreover, comic books will disappear as well as animated films and fiction movies. The disadvantage of nonfiction lies in the facts that nothing happens to excite the mind and spirit. From the other side, fiction provides a great slope for a mind to think creatively.
In conclusion, I think that people need miracles. We cannot be satisfied with only naked truth. Human kind must believe in something and this belief helps people break limits and make new inventions.
Some people say that students learn much more from their teachers than they do from other sources of education, such as the internet or television. Personally, I believe that although people now have access to huge amounts of information via the internet and television, teachers do play a crucial role in a student’s learning.
On the one hand, it is undeniable that people now have access to a seemingly unlimited amount of information via the internet. This now makes it possible for some people to completely educate themselves in almost any area of knowledge without leaving the comfort of their own home. With the use of such websites like Youtube, Kahn Academy, Alison, and other educational sites, people can learn and study from a huge range of subjects and topics. In addition to this, the increase in television channels in the past couple of decades has also provided people with further potential sources of education.
However, although there is a wealth of information at people’s fingertips these days, finding and sifting through the large amounts of material, to find accurate, reliable sources can also present a problem, and this is where teachers can be of great benefit. Part of a teacher’s job is to have good knowledge of the subject they are teaching, and this can ensure that students learn from accurate and reliable knowledge. Another benefit that teachers bring is guidance. Teachers are trained to guide students through their learning, by knowing different student’s needs and abilities and the most effective methods of teaching them, thereby enhancing the productivity of their learning.
In conclusion, although there are vast amounts of information that can easily be accessed by all people, I believe that teachers do play a vital role in the learning process of students.
Since there is a wealth of information available on the Internet, students can study by themselves at home just as effectively as they do at school; and therefore some people believe that schools are not needed anymore. In my view, much as I agree that students can study well at home with the help of the Internet, I feel that schools play a vital role in our society and cannot be replaced no matter what.
There are ways for children to learn from the Internet, most of which are either free or affordable for almost everyone. One great way is from online newspapers and video websites such as National Geographic and Youtube, which offers a variety of topic areas suitable for people of different ages. Children can learn a great deal of knowledge about culture, science, and many other areas which they are taught at schools. Also, they can participate in online courses favored by a growing number of youths nowadays. This type learning is even more advantageous in the sense that children can flexibly choose to study whatever subjects they are interested in.
That being said, my conviction is that formal education is irreplaceable in any society. It is true that students can acquire knowledge at home very easily with the help of the Internet; however, lack of teachers’ guidance and peer support is a clear disadvantage to this form of learning. These factors are extremely important to a child’s intellectual development, which emphasizes the necessity of school environments. Furthermore, knowledge and skills are not the only things to expect from formal education but social relationships and mental development. Children who go to school and establish friendships can both have fun and improve their learning outcomes.
In conclusion, the Internet is a good way for young children to study at home, but I think that claiming schools are irrelevant to children’s learning because of this is merely absurd.
Different countries have different education systems. I don‛t know all the education systems in the world but all the ones I do know about have free school education at primary and secondary level. I certainly agree with the statement that this should be the case. I believe university education is different.
No matter what standard of income someone has or what society someone comes from, everyone should have the opportunity to have a good standard of education. This is not always what happens but it is what should happen. Private schools can be available for those who want and can afford it but the free schools should always be there. This is certainly one of the best attributes of western democracy and all countries it seems strive to attain situation although some have problems due to the economic and political situations in their countries. Governments should make sure that all their citizens have access to a good standard of free education at primary and secondary level.
Further education is different. In an ideal world this should be free but governments have a lot of demands on their money. I think that students should have to pay, maybe not all, but at least a contribution towards their tuition fees. They will be able to earn it back once they have graduated. The UK has this system whereas in the US students have to pay all their high tuition fees which can run into the tens of thousands of dollars over a full course. I am not sure if I agree with this but it certainly would make sure that students make the best of efforts to pass or all their money would be wasted.
Therefore I conclude that primary and secondary education should be freely available for all if possible but that further education should not necessarily be wholly free.
Some people think that fiction books have no use at all. They claim that people should read about real events that took place, real people, and established facts. I have to totally disagree with this statement. From my everyday experience and observation I can stand that fiction, miracles and fairy tales are required in our life. For several reasons, which I will mention below, I believe that fiction books play an essential role in our life.
First of all, it is kind of difficult to imagine a six year old child reading about politics or history with the real facts that are not always pleasant. I think that children need miracles and Santa Claus because the real world is too complicated for them. They are too innocent and inexperienced to know the real facts and understand what a real life is about. In addition, I am sure that making a child read only non-fiction books can result in shock.
Second of all, following this statement about refusing from reading books about fiction events we also should refuse from festivals, parades, and celebration such holidays as Halloween because most of the characters there are fictional. Moreover, comic books will disappear as well as animated films and fiction movies. The disadvantage of nonfiction lies in the facts that nothing happens to excite the mind and spirit. From the other side, fiction provides a great slope for a mind to think creatively.
In conclusion, I think that people need miracles. We cannot be satisfied with only naked truth. Human kind must believe in something and this belief helps people break limits and make new inventions.
Parents shape their children from the beginning of their children’s lives. They teach their children values. They share their interests with them. They develop close emotional ties with them. Parents can be very important teachers in their children’s lives; however, they are not always the best teachers.
Parents may be too close to their children emotionally. For example, they may limit a child’s freedom in the name of safety. A teacher may organize an educational trip to a big city, but a parent may think this trip is too dangerous. A school may want to take the children camping, but a parent may be afraid of the child getting hurt.
Another problem is that parents sometimes expect their children’s interests to be similar to their own. If the parents love science, they may try to force their child to love science too. But what if the child prefers art? If the parents enjoy sports, they may expect their child to participate on different teams. But what if the child prefers to read?
Parents want to pass on their values to their children. However, things change. The children of today are growing up in a world different from their parents’ world. Sometimes parents, especially older ones, can’t keep up with rapid social or technological changes. A student who has friends of different races at school may find that his parents have narrower views. A student who loves computers may find that her parents don’t understand or value the digital revolution.
Parents are important teachers in our lives, but they aren’t always the best teachers. Fortunately, we have many teachers in our lives. Our parents teach us, our teachers teach us, and we learn from our peers. Books and newspapers also teach us. All of them are valuable.
People have different views about whether children should start their formal education as early as possible or delay it until they are at least 7 years old. Personally, I believe an early commencement of study would be far more beneficial than a later start.